1.

She throws a pile of his shirts at him, shrieking and crying at the same time. “Not everything is one of your fucking stories, Bradley.”

“That’s not what I meant! Honest!” The look on his face is mostly confusion, with a little terror mixed in. “Honest, Jess! I just thought that’s how it would, kind of… how it would go. You know?” <Everything follows a story pattern, though,> he thinks. But he knows he can’t say that.

She sobs. “Not everything in life has to fit into neat little narratives.”

“I know that,” he says, not really believing it.

She stares at him, tears streaming down her face, carrying her makeup in makeshift rivers. Briefly, he thinks, <Is this the moment of climax before the satisfying resolution?> He’s still trying to think of what to say when she stands up, crossing her arms.

“Look. I think I need you to leave. Permanently.”

“Jess, why? Can you just tell me why? Okay, okay,” he says, as she begins to whip his clothes and shoes at him. “I’ll get a box. Will you let me get a box? Shit!”

Things calm down a bit as he packs. Then it’s time to leave. “Goodbye, Brad.” She slams the door.

<I guess the big resolution comes later,> Brad muses, as he walks down the familiar dusty stairs for what Jess thinks is the last time.

2.

“So, how did that breakup make you feel, Brad?”

“Fucking awful. Almost indescribably bad, man. I thought she was the one. I thought we were great together. I could see our narratives stretching off into the future like railroad tracks into a sunset. Credits scrolling over our gravestones, next to each other.”

“Umm. Strange image. Ahem. Have you been getting good support from friends and family, now?”

<I don’t want to talk about this.> “Do you ever feel like your string of patients during the day are like a bunch of short stories, doc?”

“Please don’t call me ‘doc’. My name is Jerry. And no, I like to think I treat people like people. With dignity and respect. You’re not stories to me. You are a human being, Bradley.”

“Well, the way I see it, I sure am.” <Doc.> “Jerry.” <We’re all stories, trying to line our arcs up.>

“You’re free to believe whatever you want, Bradley.”

<Whatever, you prissy fuck. I feel like my heart has been ripped open, I need to rediscover my path, and you’re just not the person I want to talk to right now. With your useless notebook and smarmy fucking look on your face.>

“So. What are you thinking about?”

<Shit.> “Uh. Well… I’m wondering how I can get some character development out of this.”

“Hmm. You know, any difficult situation like this builds character.”

“Not like my stupid soul strength or emotional intelligence or anything like that. I mean, how does this carry my narrative forward?”

“If you mean to ask, can you ever love again, these things just take time.”

3.

Brad sits on the subway like a zombie, staring through the ads opposite him. “IN ANY WAR BETWEEN THE CIVILIZED MAN AND THE SAVAGE, SUPPORT THE CIVILIZED MAN.” <What the hell is that even an ad for? Disaster-driven capitalism?> He’s on the way to work, third shift as usual, and his mind is a desolate warzone.

<I can’t even take the usual people-watching>, he thinks, and he rests his face in his hands. <Knew it would hurt,> he ponders. <But I can’t even really describe it. How would the narrator in a drama explain it?> It’s like… it’s like a iron bar has been heated in a forge and then shoved through his guts. Swiftly yanked out, dragging some of his overcooked intestines along with it. But even though the breakup was just yesterday, the guts-ripping feels like a long time ago. Now he just feels empty. Hollow.

Meanwhile, some drunk lunkhead has boarded and begun the mating dance of the oblivious jackass.

“Hey baby. Why don’tcha show me dat shmiiile?”

“Fuck you, shithead,” she says, throwing him a well-practiced black-nailed middle finger without even looking at him.

“I bet that tongue piercing getsh you alllll the boys and girls,” the drunk jokes.

“I said fuck off, loser.”

Brad finally looks up and around at the bystanders, sitting there. Everyone carefully looks away from the drunk guy, as he continues to taunt her, and she tries to ignore him. <Maybe… maybe since nobody is stepping up to this douche… Maybe this is one of those times where I’m supposed to be the hero!>

He stumbles over to the leaning, leering drunk. The dude looks much bigger up close. Some kind of mass transit-related optical illusion. Brad claps a hand on his shoulder and says, “Hey, man. Knock it off.”

As he turns, Brad thinks, <Are those knuckle tattoos?> The guy pushes him off balance and yells, “Handsh off the leather, fucko. Can’t ya see we’re having a, having us a conversation?”

“Look, mister. I think you should leave the lady a—” But before Brad can even finish one of the well-rehearsed lines, he’s on the ground. “Lone?” He lies there, flattened in one punch, and the bystanders mostly just snicker. As he tries to get up, he touches his face… blood is riding ragged out of his nose down to the dance party on his shirt.

The drunk guy laughs, and smacks the back of Brad’s head as he walks by. <Zzzziiing!> “Welp, this ish my stop folks. Thanks fer the evening’s entershtainment.” Brad can’t tell if the dinging noise is the train doors or his head. <Uggggh.> Normally, he’d try and think up some parting shot. But his head is ringing.

The punk rocker woman clearly feels bad for him, because when he looks up from wiping his nose with his shirt, she’s sitting next to him. <Aha! The arcs meet!>

“Dude, I didn’t need help. And that macho shit was pretty dumb. But thanks for tryin’ I guess.” She digs in her backpack. “Here, take some tissues.”

As he holds them to his nose, he stares at her. He tries out one of his classic lines, but it comes out wrong with the blood in his nostrils: “Do you belieb id fate?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “Okay, now you can fuck right off too.” She gets up, and goes to stand by the doors.

The nosebleed finally stops, although he winces when he touches it. <Doesn’t feel broken. I think?> By now, they’re getting close to the end of the line, close to his stupid job. They’re all alone in the car, now. <Oh, what the hell.> He stands back up on his wobbly legs.

“Look, I’m sorry. That came out wrong, there, before. I just wanted to apologize.”

She just laughs. “No problem. Now fuck out of my life.”

“Do you want to have coffee sometime? Can I get your number?”

“You don’t even know my name.” She scrawls something on a scrap of paper, handing it to him with a sneer. “Here. Have a nice night, mister knight in shining stupidity armor.”

“Yeah? Well, in that case, it’s called therapy, asshole.” The train crunks to a stop and she lopes out through the doors before he can think of a snarky response.

The train doors close and he’s carried along the curving tracks, still wrapped up in his head trying to come up with the perfect snap. <The only therapy I need is your smile! Oof, awful. Too close to what the mouthbreather said. What about… Shit. Was that Woodhaven?> “Fuck. I’m covered in blood, and now I’m gonna be late.” <What am I supposed to be learning from this? How does any of this make sense? Is this my “dark night of the soul”, maybe?>

4.

The next afternoon, Brad is sitting in another therapy appointment, and for some reason, he’s much more talkative than usual. In fact, Jerry is having problems getting a word in edgewise.

“Hang on, Bradley. Enough about movies. How are you feeling about the breakup with…” He trails off.

<Fucker probably has to look at his notes just to remember my name every week. Just like the stereotype.> “But that’s what I’m trying to explain to you, Jerry. I completely stopped watching movies and reading books now because it’s so rare that you watch a character in a book watch a movie. Or read a book. Or watch a movie about someone actually reading a book. You know?” <Intentional pause. Normal conversation has pauses.>

“Uhh, okay.” Jerry’s brow is furrowed, he sounds confused, and he sure is taking a lot of notes today.

“When we watch, like, uhh, let’s-see-what’s-a-good-example uhh, The Dark Knight… Do we see the Joker taking some downtime to read a book? No! He doesn’t go to the movie theater, unless it’s to further his goal. His arc. He gets things done, and the audience connects with him.” <Connection.>

“Bradley, you’re, uhh… you’re talking about the Joker like he’s a good guy.”

<Shit. No I’m not.> “Well, no, I mean, he’s just got a really well defined arc going on, you know? The audience connects with him right away. Even if they’re scared of him.” <Calm down. Smile at him. Normal, fine.>

“Well, I’m kind of, uhh, scared of that train of thought there. I’ll be honest, Bradley. I think you may be at a higher risk for a schizophrenic break, in your current emotional state. You are going to need to see a psychiatrist.”

<Oh, good, see… that feels like a plot development.> “But I thought you were a psychiatrist.”

“No, I just talk to people. Psychotherapy is not the same as psychiatry. You need serious help, Bradley. Please, take this card. I trust her very much, she’s worked with many of my patience who need… more help than I can provide. That’s all the time we have, anyway, this week.” Jerry hands him the card, and then runs his fingers through his hair nervously.

“Have a nice day.” <What would carry my character out of this scene with a twist?> Brad puts on the strangest, most disturbing fake smile that Jerry has ever seen. “And don’t worry, doc. I’m totally over that breakup. I think I’m going to try a new kind of arc.”

The sickly smile is so bizarre that when Brad leaves, Jerry calls his colleague and leaves a voicemail. “Look, I’m sorry, but I just referred this Bradley fellow to you, and he’s, uhh, well, he’s going through some monomaniacal thinking related to personal narratives. Frankly, I’m quite worried about him.”

As Brad walks out into the sunny day, he doesn’t worry at all. He grins. <Dark night of the soul, my ass! This is my big realization! I can resolve this all, still! And it’ll be a satisfying character arc,> he thinks. Or, well, he thought he was just thinking it to himself, but the woman who just passed him on the sidewalk was giving him a really weird look. “Shit, am I narrating out loud now? Huh. Satisfying, character, arc.” He runs the words around in his mouth. He lowers the tone of his voice, trying to sound like the guy in movie trailers. “Bradley was finally ready for the next step in his master plan.”

5.

Brad climbs the dusty old stairs with a boombox in one hand and giant white poster-sized paper under his other arm. “Today is the day,” he sing-song says. When he gets to the top, he sets the boombox down and takes a moment to compose himself. <Bradley knew what he had to do.> He knocks on the door.

“Hello?” Jess opens the door and then looks at him, confused. “What the fuck are you doing here? What’s all this?”

“I know you said you never wanted to see me again, but I feel like you’re hiding your true feelings for me!” <I know this is the way our story is supposed to go…>

“Brad, get out of here.” She tries to close the door, but he’s seen this in movies before and he already has his foot in the opening.

“Look,” he says. “This is going to take some time to explain.”

As he walks toward her, she backs away to the kitchen table and grabs her phone. “Time? It’s time for you to leave. I’m asking you to leave. If you don’t, I’m gonna call the cops.” She holds up the phone, arm trembling.

“Go ahead. Call the cops.” <I guess that’s the choice she made.> He sets the stack of posterboard down on the kitchen counter and pulls a gun from his waistband, passing it from hand to hand. <Now this, this feels like a climax.>

“Shit, since when do you own a gun, Brad? Calm down!” Jess holds out her hands, imploring him.

“I am calm!” But his face is turning red. “It was supposed to be like a fairy tale!” he screams. “I didn’t want it to go this way! But you’re forcing my hand.” <We’re past the big decision,> he realizes, looking down at the gun.

They all lose it when the song kicks in, the guy singing “I find myself in a strange situation”… and then the cop shows the next card:

R U AN ELECTRICIAN? WHEN OUR ARCS CROSS, I FEEL SPARKS FLY

“Cripes, man. Is that Foreigner? Ha! So damn cheesy.” But the laughter stops when he skips a few and holds up the last card:

I UNDERSTAND NOW, I WAS THE BAD GUY ALL ALONG

]]>https://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/character-study/feed/0dgfitchEscalationhttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/escalation/
https://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/escalation/#respondTue, 19 Sep 2017 05:45:11 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1556]]>The woman sits on the bus, like the rest of us. In strained silence, watching the sun leak out of the clouds and rehydrate our shadows as they flicker on the dirty rubber floor.

Then her phone rings. We all get to hear some terrible Billy Joel song I didn’t know existed, and will be very thankful to forget. Everyone like me who doesn’t have headphones blocking their vision scuffles their feet and looks around. Nasty looks. Nobody knows whose phone it is.

It keeps going. Jesus. It’s still going.

But it’s her phone. She answers it.

“You are a bad baby,” she says. No hello. Then, “You are a very bad baby.”

We’re wondering if this is just a warped term of endearment. I giggle a little, imagining a guilty baby calling his mom. “It happened again. The death brown, Ma. It happened. I’m sorry.” But we don’t get to hear the other side. She sits and listens for a while, and we sink into the mystery of it. A bad baby. Or a bad man.

“I’m very upset with you all right now,” she suddenly yells. And she does sound upset. Now we all think something the baby said made her very angry. Maybe the baby and his baby friends are all in trouble, now.

But she yells that so loud that the bus driver turns around and hollers, “Hey. No yellin’ on my bus this mornin’, alright?” And the alright manages to encapsulate the sound of a man working split shifts and eating cheap pre-packaged food to support his family. Maybe he has a bunch of bad babies, too, we think.

So she puts a hand over the phone, and very theatrically mouths a big “SORRY” to the people around her. Nobody looks her in the eye. We’re all still puzzling it out, and it’s about to get worse.

Before the woman puts the phone back to her ear, we hear a loud squawk from it. It sounds remarkably like a baby crying. But her voice goes into a parody of stern, like she’s heard on daytime TV maybe, and she tries to talk over what I still imagine is a crying baby, but can’t be. “Does your husband know about this? I said, does your HUSBAND KNOW ABOUT THIS?” And by the time she gets to the end of saying it the second time, she’s shrieking, holding the phone at arms length like it’s going to bite her, and her face is turning red.

We’re starting to get legitimately worried for her and the baby or whoever’s on the other end of the line, but the bus driver just doesn’t give a shit and pulls over to the side of the road. “Candy. Get out,” he orders. That must be her name, we realize. Even though it sounds like a curse when he says it.

Candy ignores him and the rest of us, fuming at the phone in her hand. “You are still a very bad baby.” Somehow it becomes clear to us that she’s somehow indicting the driver when she says it.

He stands up out of his seat, and sighs as he walks into view of the camera that’s recording all this for some poor person to have to watch back later. “I’m sick up to here with you riding on my bus trying to start shit. If you don’t hang up or get out the bus, I’ll have dispatch call the cops and have them at the transfer point.” The rest of us don’t have to watch it later. We’re all watching it now, missing our damn transfers because of Candy’s very bad baby.

So finally, Candy stands up. She looks me straight in the eye, and says, “I’m very upset with you all, you know.”

Then she walks past me and looks at some old woman across the way. “Does your husband know about this?”

As she steps off the bus, the driver lowers himself back into his seat gingerly, shaking his head. She turns around as the door closes, and points the phone at him, violently flipping him off with the other hand. “You are a very bad baby!”

“Sorry folks,” the driver says over the intercom. “I don’t know how Ma found out what route I drive. We’re gonna be late to the transfer point.”

Someone up front derisively yells, “You a bad baby!” We all laugh a little. Not a lot… just enough to try to forget that it all happened. But I can’t get that god damn Billy Joel song out of my head.

]]>https://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/escalation/feed/0dgfitchImmortality Thefthttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/immortality-theft/
https://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/immortality-theft/#respondTue, 12 Sep 2017 03:32:49 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1534]]>Now would be a good time to repost a standard disclaimer: These stories are entirely fictional and any resemblance to any people or events is accidental. Also this story is rated R for lots of swears and weird blood rituals.

“Listen, Sandy, I know it’s time for the weekly status on this, but we’re not quite… prepared.” Alejo Quiñones scraped a hand through his hair, hesitating for a moment, and then dropping a pile of folders past the FRD Acting Chief nameplate on her desk. The mound of paper landed with a hollow slap, as he coughed and rubbed his forehead. “You are not gonna believe this shit we’re onto now.”

“Try me.” Sandra slowly took a sip of coffee and leaned back in her chair. “Well? You’re not usually short for words, Investigator.”

Staring at the ceiling, he shrugged and made a pained face. “These hacker people, they did the recent leak? We think they’re vampires, okay? Fucking vampires.” Alejo knew if he looked his boss in the eyes just now, he would bust out with nervous laughter. And she was decidedly not a person you laughed at on a Monday morning.

Sandra Mosley bared her teeth and sighed at the pile of paper. “Awful lot of bullshit flowing out of you, Quiñones. Don’t I get at least a few hours of peace before you start in?”

He took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling again, and then looked back at the folders, still unable to meet her gaze. “Okay, I know this sounds crazy. But it’s in there.” Alejo gestured helplessly at his team’s careful research. “So, like… instead of straight suckin’ that blood, these dark denizens of the night get their, uhh, energies from that sweet, sweet data. Sally and Ed and me, we’re getting pretty confident these weirdos did the Equifax damage.”

Sandra shook her head, and her eyes wrinkled in either displeasure or disbelief. “Quiñones. Stop. You’re trying to tell me that the worst personal data breach in recent memory was engineered. By people who think they’re… vampires? What the hell does that have to do with identity theft?”

“Well, c’mon. Remember that FPCA case a few years ago, the mafia boys what were doin’ all that weird ritual shit? It happens sometimes.” He finally worked up the strength to make eye contact, and stared at her, gripping the arms of the chair. “I’m serious, Sandy. Blood rituals, identity data, and a cabal of vampires.”

“You call me Sandy one more time while piling me up underneath your garbage fire, I’ll bust you down the DOJ ladder so far you’ll be partying with the worms. You get me?” Despite the harshness, she began to curiously page through the case files, flipping at random.

“Yeah, but this is real. I swear it. They even had an insider.” Alejo nodded, lips pursed, when she looked up over her glasses at him. He had to convince her he wasn’t pulling her leg, and this was the start.

“Someone inside at Equifax? You should have led with that, you goddamn idiot. Not all this mumbo jumbo about blood suckers. Why would they have gone so far to have someone inside for the leak? We had been going in just assuming it was shitty programming, right?”

“Right. But it’s definitely something more.” Thinking back to last week, Alejo rewound his memories of the break in the case. The video was probably the most convincing piece of their theory to lead with. “Okay, here’s where you stop thinking I’m crazy. Pull up the case share and go into FRD and then 2291. Now the EQ security cam footage.” Leaning over, Alejo pointed at a file. “Yep, there. That one. Watch this.”

As the video started, she squinted at the racks of servers in the unassuming room. “Datacenter is on site there?”

An unassuming man entered the frame, wearing office casual with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He slung the bag off onto the ground, rifling through it with his back to the camera. When he walked towards the servers, Sandra couldn’t quite make out what he was carrying. “Hold on, is that a knife? What…”

“Well, uhh, more of a dagger than a knife. And that’s a spray bottle of some kind under his arm. Just wait.”

The man stooped down, setting the dagger and bottle on the ground. Then he pulled out a keyboard from the rack of servers and began to type. Alejo said, “Okay, the stage is set. You can fast forward. Skip to seven minutes in or so.”

Sandra clicked, and then instantly grimaced, instinctively looking away from the screen. She smacked him in the arm. “What the fuck, Quiñones?”

He covered his mouth with a hand to hide his smile. “Yeah, you’re seeing that right. He’s sliced his arm open and is draining the blood into that weird spray bottle contraption.” The video wasn’t high enough resolution to see the detail, but the bottle was clearly filling up with a dark liquid.

Sandra leaned in for a closer look. “No offense, investigator, but I don’t think you know what a vampire is. They don’t do blood rituals with servers.” She had kicked back in her chair and started shaking her head, when he pointed back at the screen.. The man had screwed the top back on, and was leaning over a bunch of rectangular objects on the floor. “Is he… is he spraying the fucking drives that he took out of the rack?”

“Yeah, we think so. He’s, uhh, misting them with his blood.”

They watched, baffled, as the man put the drives back into the servers. After a few more brief keyboard commands, he loaded his tools back into the bag and began to walk out. Sandra clicked pause.

Alejo took a deep breath. “So, did you see the flicker before he picked up his shit?”

Shaking her head, Sandra ignored him. “Okay, so you’re telling me there’s some sort of group behind this, and Captain Polo Shirt here is a member of some vampire cabal? And not just some weird dude half out of his gourd?”

“Yep.” He walked back around the desk, plopped down in the chair, and just nodded slowly and stared back at her, waiting.

“Clearly he knows the camera is there, even though he didn’t even glance at it. Why not delete the footage?”

“Oh, they did scrub it. Pretty sneaky shit, too. But luckily, Sally is better at forensics than this cabal of weird fucks.”

“See, now, you said ‘cabal’ again. What else are you onto, Quiñones? Why the hell do you think it’s a group of vampires, of all fucking things?”

“Well, there’s more in the files. Some all-too-convenient connections. But it’s vampires, cuz there’s more to this video. You didn’t notice the flicker, and neither did Sally, at first. Got Ed to thank for spotting this. Pretty rusty with detective skills on this fraud job, myself.” Alejo paused, while Sandra just glared at him. “Ahem. Go back to the folder and pull up the copy that says ‘SLOWED 32x’.”

“Oh, great. Warn me this time what we’re going to see?”

He shook his head. “You already saw it, just happened too fast.”

Sandra clicked play. The man stood near his bag, frames staggering like a strobed dancer, clicking over one by one. And then he was gone, and a bat hovered in place over where had stood. “Fucking hell,” she breathed.

“Vampires,” Alejo said. “Fucking vampires.”

“Okay, maybe I’m starting to believe you and this isn’t some job-ending prank. Why the drive spraying?”

“Well, we’ve got theories, but uh, that’s all they are. Sally thinks they have some kind of, well… magic powers, and the blood gives them some kind of control over the systems that they couldn’t get by other means.”

Sandra frowned. “Like a bleeding spell instead of a rootkit?”

“Yeah. Who knows. Ed’s still certain sure that this footage was faked, but Sally was pissed he thought he had a better eye than her. She recovered it, she’s our real tech wizard, and trust me Sandy: she seems damn sure that footage is the real deal.”

“Well?”

“Well what? Other than some tenuous connections, that’s all we’ve got so far.”

“Fine.” Alejo stood up and began to pace between the fake plants. “But it’s all stupid and impossible.” He sighed, twisted his hair with his hand, and started in. “What if the whole vampire sucking blood thing is kind of a misnomer? What if they really did that whole rigmarole to, uhh, swap blood with people? Like some sort of… viral *spirit* infection. And it was the swapping that kept them alive, spreading their life force out among the populace.

“I started to think this is some kinda modern replacement for how they used to swap blood for sustenance. You know, to survive. Some new way for them to get a tiny piece of people, a tiny sacred bit of each of a ton of different people. Better for the victims, better for the vampires. No bloody messy murders with suspicious holes.”

Waving at him to break his train of thought, Sandra shuddered. “Okay, okay, you’re right, that’s weird. I don’t need to hear you say ‘suspicious holes’ any more, today, inspector. What’s your next step? A concrete thing you can do. We got an ID on this bat-man?”

“The guy’s a ghost.” Alejo caught himself. “Well, not a ghost. Whatever he is, he’s not in any systems we’ve got access to.”

“Get your team on it, then. And we should probably bring the FBI in on this now.”

“We’re on it, ma’am. Have the bureau coordinate with Ed. Sally and I are heading down to Atlanta to meet with their tech team. Was already planned for today, even before all this nonsense.” He jabbed a thumb at the screen, paused on a frame of the bat. “We were going to talk to them about the leak, and potential mitigation. But shit is about to get way weirder for them.”

“Stay safe out there and try to keep your blood *inside* your body.” Sandra frowned, staring into her coffee mug. “Or, if your theory is right, try to keep their virus *out?* I guess?”

]]>https://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/immortality-theft/feed/0dgfitchBoundary Conditionhttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/boundary-condition/
Tue, 05 Sep 2017 03:41:58 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1532]]>A woman whose hair looked to be trying to escape her orbit pushed her way out of the night, into the gas station. Glancing around the garish walls, she shook her head, sending her black curls vibrating. “Hey, kid. You mind if I plug in somewhere?”

The bored kid behind the counter set down his phone. “Wazzat? Oh, yeah, whatever lady. There’s an outlet behind the Twinkies and shit.”

Kristin muttered to herself as she raced to where he pointed, floundering in her purse. Out came the cord, and she bent down behind the display shelf, not even caring if the kid stared at her ass. But he was back to scrolling, past heavy lids, scrolling like his life depended on it.

She hunched down in a squat because the cord wouldn’t reach far enough to stand, and muttered nervously as her phone danced through its stupid waltz of powering on. “Don’t do something stupid, Chuck. Just don’t ruin our boy. Just don’t ruin his life, Chuck.”

Flipping through the pending texts, Kristin swore and then put the phone to her ear. “Come on come on…” She really wanted to pace around, but the short leash kept her staring at the sunflower seeds as she ground her teeth. “Hey, honey. Now what the heck is going on? What did you mean, you found something?”

As he began to talk, she sighed and looked at the dirty tiled floor with clear distaste. Shaking her head, she put a hand on the floor to lower herself down to sit against the Ding Dongs and Nutty Bars.

“We promised we wouldn’t snoop on his… No, Chuck. We promised him his messages were…” Running a hand through her hair as his voice grew louder, a wave of anger rolled through her, and her forehead flushed. “Don’t you dare. Do not shame him. Do not shame our son.”

Kristen pushed herself back on her haunches, and then suddenly stood up. The phone flew out of her hand and hit the floor with a clunk. “Dang it,” she muttered, picking it back up. “So now you’re the judge? How dare you?”

Her face reddening, she glanced up to see if the kid at the counter was paying attention. He appeared to be ignoring her, so she let some of the rage into her voice. “No, wait. What do you mean? Why would I care that much if our son is gay? Why do YOU care?”

Pulling the phone off of the wire, she stood up and began to pace, her shoes clacking on the tiles in an uneven beat. “Charles, do not even THINK about it. What do you mean? It’s not our place. Are you really going to love him less, now?”

An angry buzz came from the phone, and she held it away from her ear. “Calm down, Charles. Not until we talk. No, damn it. NO. Yes, I’m fucking swearing at you now. I’ll be home in ten.” Grimacing, she slung her purse over her shoulder and stomped to the doors.

“Wait. He’s pulling in NOW?” She slammed into the door handle, but it didn’t budge. “Don’t you even. No, Charles. God no…”

“Pull,” said the sleepy kid at the cash register.

Howling like an angry dog, Kristin yanked at the handle and stalked off.

The dude working there blinked, with a look on his face like he just woke up and was preferring the dream. He yelled, “Hey lady, you forgot…” but trailed off. She was already getting in her car. “Your charger. Whatever.” He looked over at the cable snaking out from under the Twinkies, took a step around, and then stopped. Then he leaned over the counter with a groan and put his face in his hands. Trying not to think about his dead dad, how he hadn’t talked to his mom in months, or the disaster that he still hadn’t dealt with in the men’s restroom. The muzak helpfully started up a horrifically bland cover of Here Comes the Sun. “And I say, it’s all right.”

]]>dgfitchHarryhttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/08/29/harry/
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 06:40:03 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1462]]>Every muscle in his body screamed in agony. He fought against the strong urge to vomit as the invisible vice tightened around his arms, his legs and his chest. Harry tried to think of something, anything else besides the torture he was enduring. His mind drifted for a moment. He thought of his mother… she was wearing that ugly yellow apron and standing in his childhood kitchen. She was making cookies. She always let him lick the spoon! He could almost taste the sickly sweet batter. She smiled at young Harry as she turned the electric mixer on high speed.

Without warning, Harry was in the orange plastic mixing bowl and he was being beaten to death by the electric mixer. He couldn’t breath. His mother’s smiling face looked down into the bowl and she waggled her finger and said, “No more cookie dough for you, young man!”

He tried to claw his way up the sides of the bowl, but his efforts were in vain. The beaters were holding his legs in place as he reached for the rim. His mother calmly used the rubber scraper to loosen his frantic grip on the edge of the bowl, which sent him crashing back into the cookie dough. She scowled into the bowl and said, “Now Harry, you wouldn’t want to insult my baking, would you? I’ve been making these special for you!”

He let out a groan as the whirring mixer beat his mangled legs into the batter. His mother continued to beat his legs with the mixer as she used the rubber scraper in her other hand to get the dough and bits of his demolished arms and legs off the sides of the bowl. She absently hummed an unrecognizable tune to herself as she used the scraper to begin piling the cookie dough and Harry’s body parts on top of his chest. He gasped for air as the weight on his chest grew heavier and heavier. He was beginning to grow faint from lack of oxygen. His mother looked down at him scornfully and said, “Now, now, Harry, don’t eat too many cookies. You’ll get fat!” And with that, the excruciating pain lifted and his world faded to black.

Harry gasped as he pressed the emergency stop button on the treadmill. Sweat poured down his ruddy face and his oversized t-shirt was soaked. He bent over and put his hands on his knees while he wheezed. Finally when his breathing returned to normal and the nausea passed, he stood upright and looked at the treadmill monitor. “6 minutes and 14 seconds” it read. He sighed as he wiped his face with his little white gym towel. He lumbered toward the men’s locker room and resolved to come back and do it all over again tomorrow.

]]>sarawexler4Candymanhttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/candyman/
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 02:39:41 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1447]]>I could write it like a horror story, the way the world ends, or I could write it like a beautiful dream. You could describe the awful shock of suddenly waking up to a world colored in radioactive glowing pinks and purples, sitting up to exclaim some profanity, and instead vomiting tiny colorful candies all over the bed. Or you could tell the truth about the end of the world, because I have to be honest here. It feels amazing when the candy pours out of my mouth unbidden. Even that first time, when my shock and horror gave way to supreme bliss, I knew that this was what my life was leading up to.

I know that sounds stupid when I write it down, like that. But it brings me great joy. It is a pleasure greater than orgasm, a wholesome gift of giving. It is what I am meant to do.

When the children follow me down the marshmallow streets, laughing with glee as they bounce and play, I am grateful that I have this blessing. I open my mouth, and out pours a twinkling sugary tornado of delicious candy. Their eyes go wide, and they race to catch some of it before it bounces into the candy sewers. (I make a point to let my creation bounce on the soft white streets first, before they grab it up, because otherwise it still feels somehow… profane?) At any rate, the children, they gobble the little candies up, and I can tell the taste is amazing even though I am unable to eat anything now, after the end. I grin and doff my cotton candy hat and twirl my candy cane at them, and make my way to wherever I wander.

I can’t eat, because any time I open my mouth, the torrent of little candies forces anything I put in there right back out. So I can’t even really enjoy my own product, as it were. Or any of the other confections our new world consists of. But it’s not all that bad, really. Nobody needs to eat any more, and everyone is impossibly healthy. I don’t miss it.

Nobody has jobs. Pain is not a thing anyone remembers. Suffering and inequality do not exist in our bizarre heaven of fluorescent spiraling colors and sugared treats. And wishes over cakes and candles sometimes actually do come true, for the truly lucky children.

But it is the end of the world, in a way. Just pleasure and absurdity, hand in hand, walking into an implausibly golden sunset.

Nobody knows how it happened. Was it aliens? A subversive, gnostic God? An architected intelligence whose value function tilted too far to the goofy end of the spectrum, and it landed us here? Nobody knows, and few people worry about it. Life goes on, after this ending. On and on and on. With sprinkles on top. Sprinkles everywhere, come to think of it.

Nobody dies any more. Nobody even ages any more. And nobody can get pregnant with all our genitals turned into various unfeeling candy shapes. But nobody misses all that, because the pure joy of creating whatever strange happiness you have been blessed with is all that matters. I would not be surprised if I was the only person on Earth who even managed to think of death this entire year. I was always the cynical sort, I suppose, and not even my mouth’s new blessing has completely taken that away.

I’m not even sure how many years have passed. All the paper and pens got turned into magical scrolls which become cute little confectionary animals when you draw on them. So I had to write all this on a giant house-sized cake, and then try to wish it into a different place. A different world, perhaps a world where candy has not yet made us all shiver with undying pleasure. But my wishing will likely fail, and soon the children will eat the cake, and I will smile at them and nod. We will forget all about the world before bliss took over.

I will open my mouth, and the purest joy will pour out.

]]>dgfitchWorld Grudge Holding Championshipshttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/08/14/world-grudge-holding-championships/
Tue, 15 Aug 2017 04:03:57 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1434]]>Annnnd welcome back, folks, to ESPN3 for this years final event of the GHL. I’m Steve Inlezzen. With me is Bob McHestle. We’re happy to bring you the exciting action of this years playoff event. These competitors have clinched their path to these championships, and, well now, Bob… it’s time to see if they have what it takes.

Two giant CGI robots grimace at each other with glowing red laser eyes while bombastic theme music plays, and then they stand back to back with their arms crossed as the camera flies between their stoic spines towards a branching graphic.

Well, as you can see from this playoff bracket, our top eight contenders this year are no slouches. Five of them are returning from prior playoffs, including three previous world champions. but we have three fresh faces in the grudge-off.

Indeed! Folks were kind of surprised to see a few of these contenders make it to the big stage, Steve. They’ll have the best chance of their lives to take home the coveted Gritted Teeth trophy here today, because this year the playoffs have shifted to a double elimination format.

Pretty exciting, Bob! Have to admit, I myself was not a fan of how last year’s championship event went down, so I think everyone who follows the GHL is excited for the new rule changes in the post-season this year.

Oh, the air is brimming with electricity in the arena tonight. The stage is set for some truly superhuman feats of egoic strength. Steve interviewed the contenders earlier in the week. Before the first grudge match begins, let’s meet these three newcomers to the finals, shall we?

A man appears on the screen, looking dour. The chyron introduces him as Robert Derkley, with the subtitle of “Aggrieved Father” and a record of 12-4.

Robert, welcome to the big stage! Are you excited to finally show the doubters your grudge skills?

Well, uhh. Uhh, yeah. I am.

You look pretty dour there, my good man! Well done. Why don’t you tell us about your career history and what brought you here to the championships?

Well yes. Uhh, thanks Steve. I feel like my strength comes from training with my father, which makes my grudges really stick well, just like his did. I’m also, uhh, pretty flexible with how I hold on.

Great! Your regular season was impressive for a first timer. Any predictions for these final matches?

I think everyone should be impressed by my showing.

The screen zooms around, a giant shining metal logo flying by, and the chyron introduces a woman who sneers directly into the camera as Vera Klarhawk. Her title is listed below as “Flexible Rager”, and her record is 13-3.

Vera, welcome to the finals! Are you ready to bring your unique rope-a-dope stylings to the finals?

Pfft. Of course.

Tell us about yourself.

I’d really rather not.

Well, uhh, that stare is definitely painful. Any predictions for the finals?

Yeah. They all suck. I’m going to roll ’em. Because I hate everyone, with good reason.

Haha! Excellent. Thanks, Vera.

The screen flings about again past the glimmering computerized logo. Now the chyron introduces Fred Manamank, titled “Dark Horse”, with a record of 14-2.

Fred, a big welcome to the big tent! Are you prepared for the intensity of the best contenders?

Fred stares into the camera blankly with a frown on his face, and shakes his head slowly.

Well then! Yes. We’ve all seen your stylings, I just didn’t know you stuck to them outside of matches!

He stares off into the distance. His lip twitches slightly, as the interviewer coughs.

Hmm. Umm, have you got any predictions for the finals?

Fred frowns deeper and rubs his temples, as the screen flies off to be replaced with a large arena filled with fans.

Wow, he’s pretty intense, huh Steve?

You could say that, Bob! Let’s get into the action. Our first match…

You click the TV off and fall asleep finally on the uncomfortable hotel bed.

Arrre you ready folks, for the final match?

The crowd roars with approval. You blink back awake. How did the TV come back on?

This is it, Bob. We’ve got an exciting final nobody could have predicted!

That’s right! If you’re just joining us, Vera Klarhawk has battled her way out of the loser’s bracket to face the fearsome Fred Manamank, with both of them newcomers to the league this year. One of them will take home the Gritted Teeth.

I’ve been told by our correspondent Rita at ringside that she may have some insight into Fred’s effective grudge strength. Rita?

Yes, Steve. I’ve been talking to some of the other competitors who got knocked out, and they believe that while Vera has a chance still, Fred may have a fatal advantage. Several people independently suspect that he has done what we call the ‘inversion tactic’. As you guys at the desk know, we’ve seen people try this strategy in years past, but it’s never worked. It’s been insincere and always fallen apart. But after watching Fred’s run today, people down here definitely think he has it figured out. They are sure that he is somehow managing to hold onto an incredibly strong grudge against himself.

The TV suddenly flips to static and then goes black. You sit in the hotel bed, wondering what parts were a dream, and think about the grudges you hold…

]]>dgfitchHalfway Pointshttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/halfway-points/
Sun, 06 Aug 2017 22:27:39 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1430]]>As I sighed a pile of plastic organizer tubs onto the checkout counter at the hardware store, the man working the register turned to me and smiled. “Looks like you’re doing a whole lot of organizing. Daughter going to college?”

I shook my head and laughed awkwardly, mumbling. “No, just owned a house too long without moving. Too much stuff sitting out.” In that moment, I felt a weird wash of emotions. The thought of having a daughter is terrifying. I’m grateful I have a nice home, I feel my privilege and the guilt that whips with it. I’m grateful that I never had kids at a young age, and that my life turned out how it did.

I wonder if the hardware guy could read any of this on my face.

If you know me, you know I like to say “no regrets!” And that’s usually true. Regrets are just mistakes you learn from and move forward. Live your life how you want. Yet there’s certainly that wondering feeling that floats in, where you think about how things could have been different. I don’t want to live in that feeling, but since I’m old enough now to have high-school friends whose kids are going off to college, I do wonder what it could have been like. Chaos. Kids. A different kind of life.

And that weird vertigo is just a symptom of a pattern I’ve had, lately. I have been thinking quite a bit about halfway points. The place we call “here” or “now” that you find yourself at, midway between the beginning and the end. The place you started, the halfway point here, and the end that seems too close or too far.

The real start I don’t even remember. Here is the start of middle age, with my body creaking and whining. There, both close and far, is death; eventual, marching, the black release of the unknown.

Another start is buying a house with someone I loved, until I found out how I and others can fail so badly. Here is owning half of that house, alone, splitting the debt with an abstract bank. Here, still, still, still, learning to love and fail. There at the end is owning the whole house, having lived in a town I love for so long. What will life be like then? How can I even guess?

Yet another start is living in a cult-like basement in Salt Lake City, and returning to Madison, desperate for a job. In the halfway point, I’ve worked here (at one single job) for longer than I was alive before. There, at a different kind of end, is me trying to imagine a different career. The kind of end that is also a beginning. Helping to understand humans better, instead of grinding away at the gears of the government that currently fails us. Over, and over, and over.

The start was a shy nerd, awash with apathy, trying to find my place on this plane. Now, here is being simple and weird. Crying and laughing. Creating and encouraging. Attempting to make things better on a small scale. And selfishly focusing on my own world too much.

But there? There I stand too far away, like an imagined portrait hanging on a post in the middle of a lake, taken with a camera that can’t quite focus on the future.

The start is a painful time of a relationship falling apart, when I decided I would try to write a story every week for a year. Battling through the pain of finding out a new way you fail. Where I find myself, here and now, is over halfway through that year, still writing. Recover, uncover, recreate, approximate, discover anew.

And finally, the end of that particular writing race is Over There, where I stand at the end of the year. It’s not really that far away; it can be measured in months. But I still see myself off in that middle distance like a blurry ghost; as if I don’t know what shape my body will take then. Future amorphous ghost me is holding at least 52 pieces of writing, that he sees mostly as trash. Trash he will have to dig through for gems. There’s a smile on my shapeless face, but there’s also exhaustion. And I can tell that end is bittersweet on the ghostly tongue: a flavor that ghosts can only barely taste but that we humans know all too well.

That particular end doesn’t have to be an end, though; the bitterness can sink into the soil and become new herbs, and the sweetness can soak out into the fruits. I can keep picking up things I enjoy, mold them into habits, and when I choose, turn them into a process that in turn shapes me.

Anyone can do that. We just like to lie to ourselves that we don’t have what it takes. We picture ourselves past the HERE, beyond the halfway point, and therefore any effort is doomed. Or we see ourselves as unable to get past the start, to take that first step up the hill.

We’re missing some crucial bit. We like to say we’re just not motivated, too tired, too perfectionist, too this or too that. What if the there might be closer, if you want it to be? Or it might be still further away than you think it is, if you are scared of the blackness that blinds you. There might be many interesting points halfway through that journey. How do you even know how far there is to go, when we can’t even guess where the real halfway point is?

What with all this writing, I’ve been thinking a lot about character arcs. Tense climaxes, satisfying endings, tricky denouements. Apocalypses and ways to write satisfying narratives that don’t revolve around an explosion. Characters who change and grow, shrink inward or become something new, sliding into a different archetypal skin.

But nothing is quite so neat as all that in real life. Most of us don’t get the chance to wrap everything up with a big ol’ majestic bow, or manage to magically leave a satisfying, sensible arc behind us. Life really is tricky, in it’s own way, and one of the tricks it plays can be to our advantage: The halfway point that I think of as HERE changes, depending on where I measure the start and the end from.

We’re not characters in someone’s book. There’s not one single arc we have to follow. Easy to write that down, but hard to remember it. So keep going. Find new measures. If you’re bored, add a new arc. If you’re tired, get some sleep.

I’ll see you where my ghost is giving your ghost a high five, somewhere down that murky, confusing path. Let’s not be afraid of the start, the end… or all the points halfway between here and there.

]]>dgfitchChicken Delicioushttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/chicken-delicious/
Tue, 01 Aug 2017 05:16:13 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1385]]>Gary looked up from his phone when the woman shouted at him from down the block. It sounded like she said “Come help,” so he stopped texting and trotted up towards her. What was she holding? A twitchy little dog? Had it been hurt? He shoved his phone into his pocket past the chain, and almost tripped on a crack in the sidewalk when he saw what the white animal was.

It was a chicken. A rooster, in fact, if his city-born eyes did not deceive him. Gary was slightly out of breath, and a little confused, so he came up to the woman and stopped, panting with his hands on his knees for a while.

She said nothing. Gary said nothing. She held the chicken out at arms length, as if trying to hand it to him. The street was quiet except for the indignant clucking of the rooster. He stood up, exhaled the last of the pain out of his ribs, and thought about how he had been meaning to get more exercise lately. “Uhh, hi,” he said, still catching his breath. “I thought you said you needed help?”

The woman squinted at him. “I’m not sure you’re going to be much help. You look half dead from running half a block!”

Gary felt hurt, and almost turned to walk away. But there was just something too embarrassing about walking away from the chicken, held out towards him, defiant, clucking at his predicament. So Gary shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, lady, what do you need help with?”

Her voice dripping sarcasm, she replied, “Oh, now I’m a lady? Well ain’t that just swell, sir. Looks like we got a real gentleman here, don’t we?” she asked the rooster, waving it in Gary’s face.

“I don’t see what the problem is, ma’am. If you don’t need anything, I’ll just… I’ll just waddle on home.” He sighed, and looked away, unable to stare at the chicken or her crazy eyes any longer.

“Well, mister. I’m just trying to figure out why this here chicken crossed the road.” With that, she burst out laughing. Somehow, the rooster seemed to understand the signal, and began to crow.

Gary wanted to swear or yell something clever at her, but before he could respond he found his arm reaching out of its own volition to smack the thing out of her hands. It fell to the ground with a disgruntled cluck, “ke-BAWK!” and the woman gasped with surprise.

“I’m gonna go buy a god damned chicken sandwich,” he said, as he stalked off down the street, not looking back.

]]>dgfitchYour Numberhttps://nilscript.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/your-number/
Tue, 25 Jul 2017 03:23:35 +0000http://nilscript.wordpress.com/?p=1375]]>You’re in the kitchen making dinner, listening to one of your favorite albums in your headphones because the neighbor is out mowing the lawn yet again. Chopping up the potatoes, singing along because the house is empty, still, and then the music stops.

You frown, wipe your hands off quickly, and pull your phone out of your pocket. Oh, it’s a call. Your area code, but unknown number. You shrug and pick up. “Hello?”

A woman’s voice you don’t recognize says, “Is Sandy there?”

“No, sorry, you must have the wrong number.” For some reason you’ve been getting a lot of these lately. You rattle off your number.

“Oh, shoot, you’re right. I should have known! You don’t sound like a Sandy,” she says.

“Yup, have a nice day…” And you’re about to hang up when a moment of deja vu makes you stop and wait. Didn’t this exact conversation just happen recently? You could swear that ‘You don’t sound like a Sandy’ line is just too familiar. Where did you hear that?

Then her voice breaks your reverie. “Umm, sorry. You still there?” She says ‘still’ with a slight drawl, but you can’t place the accent.

“Yeah, uhh.” You blink. “You want something?”

“What… what’s the date? I mean I know this sounds like a prank call…” But it doesn’t. She sounds earnest, and a bit stressed out.

“Uhh, I’m not sure. It’s Sunday. Like the twentieth or something, maybe?”

“But it’s… it’s 2017 where you are, yeah?”

“Look lady–” And just as you’re about to yell at her for messing with you, a strange echoing series of clicks interrupt you, rhythmic and almost musical, but loud and getting louder. They get so loud that she’s saying something you can’t hear at all beneath the noise.

“Gah!” you yell, as you rip the earbuds from your ears. Your phone shouldn’t be even able to get that loud. You stand there, weirdly embarrassed, staring at the wires as they sit placidly on the waiting pile of chopped potatoes.

The mower next door buzzes. You can hear something coming out of the headphones. Oh, right… it’s the album you were listening to before. You pop the earbuds back in, pick up the knife, and slice the onion down the center.

And then the music stops again. Another call. Same number. You have to confess to yourself that you’re kind of curious. Even if it’s a prank, she’s at least entertaining.

You sigh. “Yeah, sad as that is, right?” Your reply comes out of your mouth before you realize how strange her question is. Then a strange whooshing noise comes across the line, and you hear what sounds like an argument in the background.

“Listen, Frank,” a man’s voice says loudly. “It’s too late, the branch has grown too long after we cut the root.”

“No, I’m telling you, we can take this upstairs.” A different male voice.

A tiny click and then you hear the woman sigh. “I’m really sorry I involved you in this.” Then she breathes your name like she knows you. “I’m sorry.” In that moment, you could swear she’s a relative. Or an old friend. But you just can’t place her.

The clicks start overriding her just as she starts to say something else, and you yell “Bye!” as you rip the headphones out.

Standing there, staring at the cutting board still, you shake your head. Then you pull up your call log and call back.

The phone clicks, and your music starts back up. You poke at your phone to go save the number, but there’s nothing in your call log. No outgoing, no incoming. None from today, none at all. Just blank. That’s weird.

Oh well. You pick up the onion again and start mincing it. When the next song kicks in, you start to forget all about the calls. You love this song, so you start singing along.